VOICE IN TEXT: TRANSLATING ORALITY IN ROBERT BRINGHURST’S A STORY AS SHARP AS A KNIFE, HARRY ROBINSON’S WRITE IT ON YOUR HEART, AND WAR PARTY’S THE REIGN by Paul Watkins A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2010 © Paul Watkins, 2010 Abstract Voice in Text investigates the process of translation that occurs when transmitting oral stories into a written framework with the intention to bridge the gaps that exist between oral traditions and technological scholarship. This thesis explores the potential motives behind Robert Bringhurst’s retranslation of John Swanton’s Haida texts, Wendy Wickwire’s transcription of Harry Robinson’s stories onto the page, and War Party’s use of Hip Hop as an expression of Native identity. Translating (one culture into another and the spoken into the written) can be used as a tactic to reinscribe cultural priorities and also to enact resistance. A storyteller’s allowance of the transcription and translation of their stories can be read as a plea for a listening that functions cross-culturally, a listening in which we can gradually learn to hear the storyteller’s voice in a written context. I apply theories of hybridity and intersubjective approaches to listening in my investigation to uncover how the translator and storyteller engage in a cross-cultural mode of transformation. Because of the highly sensitive nature of translating First Nations literature into a European poetic context, as both Bringhurst and Wickwire do, I explore some of the debates surrounding cultural appropriation, as well as show how potential divergences between written and oral practices interact to question what constitutes a respectful rendering of another culture. In many cases, writing and orality can function within a unified synthesis that reflects the priorities of both mediums simultaneously. Ultimately, this project is intended to provide an ethical approach to listening, an approach that places responsibility on a reader’s own approach to a text, in order to show that a sensitive reading is itself a process that involves a highly dialogic and integral role in the process of uncovering a human voice in text. ii Table of Contents Abstract.......................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... iii Yahguadangang (author’s respects)........................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................v Chief Dan George Epigraph ....................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER ONE: Building Bridges Between Academia and Indigenous Literatures 1.1 Outlining the Project’s Parameters .............................................................................................. 1 1.2 Finding the Appropriate Words................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Appropriation and Abrogation..................................................................................................... 8 1.4 Make it New: Translation and Hybrid Texuality....................................................................... 11 CHAPTER TWO: Cross-Culturally Rendering Oral Myth in Robert Bringhurst’s A Story as Sharp as a Knife 2.1 Anthropology and Ethnopoetics ................................................................................................ 17 2.2 Learning to Hear the Voice in Text ........................................................................................... 21 2.3 The Sound of Myth.................................................................................................................... 27 2.4 Rendering the “Other” in the Self.............................................................................................. 32 CHAPTER THREE: Creating Dialogic Spaces in Harry Robinsons Write it on Your Heart 3.1 Storytelling as a Cultural Pedagogy .......................................................................................... 37 3.2 “Interfusional” Writing.............................................................................................................. 41 3.3 The Whirlwind of History ......................................................................................................... 45 3.4 Performing Audience................................................................................................................. 51 CHAPTER FOUR: Resistance as Cultural Translation in War Party’s The Reign 4.1 Hip Hop as a Multicultural Pedagogy ....................................................................................... 55 4.2 Contesting Space: Abrogation and Reinscription...................................................................... 60 4.3 Hybrid Orality and Hypertext Poetics ....................................................................................... 66 4.4 Antiphony: Calling Together, or Calling Away ........................................................................ 71 CHAPTER FIVE (Outro): Listening Scholars 5.1 First Nations Critical Practice in the 21st Century ..................................................................... 78 Endnotes .......................................................................................................................................82 Works Cited..................................................................................................................................85 iii Yahguadangang (to pay respect) I have learnt far more from First Nations literature than I could ever hope to repay by placing it within a sphere of critical scholarship. In many ways for me this project has been a labour of love; it is a way for me to express my gratitude for and to pay respect (yahguadangang, as they say in Haida) to the knowledge imparted upon me from the various storytellers explored in Voice in Text. I am writing my admirations from a beautiful cabin seven miles outside the town of Masset (“White Hillside,” Ghadaghaaxhiwaas) on Haida Gwaii—far removed from university life, the 2010 Vancouver Olympics (which are currently taking place on Native land), the city, corporations, and even basic amenities, such as electricity. This cabin is my Walden, and in many ways its dislocation from city life serves as a direct reminder of the ecological richness from which the literature of this project emerges. Like the ecologically diverse landscape, culture, and people of Haida Gwaii, I hope my project (Voice in Text) reflects a little of this unique environment. With the Vancouver 2010 Olympics wrapping up this week, research on cultural translation, cultural appropriation, and hybridity are now perhaps more crucial than ever. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s unsanctioned appropriation of the Cowichan1 Sweater as official Olympic wear and the many hybridized images presented on billboards and televised screens, are some of many examples of cultural appropriation of First Nations culture that have recently taken place. Like the complex weave work of a Cowichan sweater, the rich hybridity of Hip Hop music within a First Nations context, or the multilayered imagery found upon a Pacific Northwest totem pole, this project is an attempt at academic polyphony. The quotes which introduce each section of this project provide voices from a variety of literary spheres and margins that, for me, engage with the works in dialogic ways, often illuminating the interconnectedness of diverse cultures, while highlighting their inherent and unique distinctiveness. Like the storytellers found in this project, these opening quotations are reminders of voices that refuse to be silenced; further, they create dialogic counterpoints and shed light on my own intertextualized observations. Lastly, after having spent a week on Haida Gwaii, visiting some of the same spots where Skaay and Ghandl recounted their masterworks to an attentive John Swanton— amid a world they loved, a world which they saw being decimated at the hands of their oppressors— this project is at attempt at attentive listening. Voice in Text, first and foremost, is an homage to all the writers of this project (First Nations and academic scholars who maintain the importance of First Nations literatures) and their endurance and ability to infuse the oral within the textual. These (Skaay, Ghandl, Robinson, War Party) are all voices that refuse to be silenced and are all works that engage in repatriation (a return back to an origin). I have learned a great deal in listening to these poets (skilled crafters of words) and hope that others will too seek them out. I dedicate this project to their vast wisdom and to an ongoing hope for cultural understanding across human constructed boundaries. Haaw7a. Haida Gwaii (Masset) Feb 25, 2010. iv Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank Erika Patterson, who instilled in me a great appreciation for First Nations literature and art. I would also like to thank my wonderful supervisory committee, whose guidance and patience have helped the focus of my project a great deal. This project would never